


how Stuart learned to stop worrying and embrace his low score on the Kinsey scale

by janie_tangerine



Category: Sirens (UK)
Genre: 5 Acts Meme, Caretaking, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort (sorrrt of), M/M, Realization, Stuart is Ash's I.C.E., the Kinsey scale exists and you can score low on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Stuart finds out he's Ash's I.C.E. and Ash has to move at his place for a relatively long time. And Stuart finds he's after all not a zero on the Kinsey scale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how Stuart learned to stop worrying and embrace his low score on the Kinsey scale

**Author's Note:**

> written for [lipstickcat](http://lipstickcat.livejournal.com/608024.html) for the last five acts round; the prompts were friends to lovers and caretaking. Nothing is mine (except the title, for once, but it's not entirely original either. Sorry, Stanley Kubrick /o\\).

Stuart is going to kill Ash, when he gets better.

No, seriously, he is.

First and foremost, because of the I.C.E. thing. He had thought that the whole ‘not-telling-your-I.C.E.-that- _they_ -are-your-I.C.E’ policy was idiotic from the first moment he heard it, but then again he hadn’t thought that it was his business.

How was he even supposed to know that he was the I.C.E.? Well, he hadn’t even taken that into account. Not with that whole speech Ash had sprung about it. It’s the person you trust most in the world, the one you want by your side when it really matters while _holding your fucking hand_ and who by the way Ash wasn’t apparently interested in fucking, and oh, _right_ , that should’ve been him? Stuart isn’t even sure he trusts himself half of the bloody time and _he_ should be the guy that – he can’t. What did he say? Fucked up rules of conduct? Yeah. That’s it. He was totally right about that.

Because seriously, it’s fucked up when you’re woken up in the middle of your only night off shift, answer the phone wondering what Ash wants at three AM and it’s some guy from the hospital informing that he’s being called because he’s Ash’s I.C.E. and the idiot was hit by a car and he has a broken leg.

Let’s not get into what followed after – at least Ash was on enough good stuff that it was completely worthless to try and tell him that he’s an idiot.

Point is, broken leg. And it’s going to be a week before he can start walking around for more than small distances (say, bathroom-bedroom). And since Stuart is the damned I.C.E. and while feeling like a poor excuse of a human being is nothing he isn’t familiar with, he’s also not such a poor excuse for a human being not to realize that he can’t wash his hands off it. Also, it’s not like Ash can be left alone at his place, which is why he’s currently stationed on Stuart’s bed for the next three weeks or so. Stuart feels kind of like someone’s making fun of him – he has to sleep on his own couch. Is that even normal? Probably not.

Also, he should have ripped Ash a new one the moment he could actually understand him, but then he remembered that speech and – well, if _one_ person he knows thinks that he’s the kind of person that anyone would want by their side when it really matters (seriously, not even on Hallmark cards), then he isn’t sure that he wanted to disappoint him.

“Next time just fucking tell me,” he had said instead as he sat next to Ash’s bed. “And by the way, you’re moving in with me until you can stand.”

Ash had looked as if he hadn’t expected it, but not in a negative-I-wasn’t-expecting-it-kind-of-way. It was the I-am-so-glad-I-was-right-about-this-way, and Stuart doesn’t even know what to make of it.

\--

Anyway. Ash is obviously off duty for a while – well, paramedics with broken legs would be kind of useless, would they? Stuart knows he’ll regret this, but he asks to get the day shift until he’s back on the field or at least back at his place and no one actually tells him off. Huh.

Who’d have thought.

Also, there were a couple of things he hadn’t really thought in advance. Like that while (thankfully) broken leg or not Ash can cover the bathroom/bedroom distance, he can’t exactly shower. Or take a bath. Or cook. Or do anything that requires _standing_.

He supposes he should be glad that neither of them is self-conscious about being naked – fuck, with the job they do Stuart would feel ridiculous if having to help your best friend and person who puts you as an I.C.E. contact stand in the shower while they wash their hair without getting water on the cast turned you into some kind of prude.

“Are you sure this isn’t weird?” Ash asks him while he runs a sponge over his chest (some water is falling over Stuart’s hands).

“For the tenth time, no. For – it’s not like you don’t do the same job as me.”

“Point taken.”

“It’s not like it threatens my sexuality or anything. That said, how long is this going to be? You’re not a fucking lightweight.”

Ash snorts and tells him it won’t be much longer.

Stuart’s life is a joke.

\--

There’s also the part where he doesn’t even attempt cooking himself when he comes back in the evening.

He isn’t sure that after one week he should know Ash’s take-out preferences well enough that he doesn’t need to call him before getting their food.

“Do you want to kill me with grease?” Ash punctually asks every time.

“Believe me, my cooking would kill you first.”

Ash laughs as Stuart sits on the other side of the bed and they start eating, and Stuart thinks _I never noticed that he has such a nice laugh_ and then he almost chokes on his spring rolls because seriously, where the fuck did that come from?

\--

Oh, there’s the part where Stuart likes women.

Except that this entire situation is fucking with him, because when two weeks in, as they do the more-or-less-usual-by-now shower where Stuart keeps Ash on his feet he starts noticing things. Like, you know, that Ash is objectively an attractive guy, or at least he would be to a gay man. Or an heterosexual woman. Or to bisexual people. Categories of which Stuart is _not_ a part of.

Or that his hair is an interesting shade of red. Or that he has nice eyes. (We covered the part about the laughing already.) Or that –

Fuck.

Stuart can’t believe that he’s the person scoring one on the Kinsey scale. He never was the kind of person scoring one on the Kinsey scale.

Not to mention that Ash had told him straight – his I.C.E. was not someone he wanted to fuck, which means that Stuart should really just stop thinking about this entire thing and chalk it up as – he doesn’t know which kind of freak out. Maxine would probably say that it’s a someone-thinks-I’m-a-decent-human-being freak out, but he isn’t sure it covers it.

\--

Right, there’s the part where one night he wakes up on his couch and he has just dreamed that he and Ash were making out and oh bloody hell he has a legitimate hard-on and he can’t believe that he ends up wanking on the couch like a fucking thirteen year old while he thinks about his best friend sleeping in his bed not far away.

He wonders if he should talk about it to someone. Maybe Maxine. But – no. He isn’t sure he wants to throw this at her, too. Rachid is out of the fucking question.

Okay. No, maybe he shouldn’t talk about it to anyone.

\--

Three weeks in, there’s the part where he can’t reasonably keep on ignoring it anymore. If he does, he’ll die of the headache he’s getting. (If you can die of a headache.) Also, Ash is getting around on crutches and he won’t stay here much longer and fuck but Stuart thinks that he might even miss the company, and – how did he even start thinking about Ash like this in less than a month when they’ve known each other for a whole lot fucking longer than that?

Right. He doesn’t want to know. If he asked Maxine she’d tell him something about denial and probably not having letting himself notice and shit like that, and it’s the last thing Stuart needs.

What he needs is a reasonable talk about this.

“Why did you tell me that your I.C.E. wasn’t someone you’d have liked to fuck?” he asks Ash at dinner (well, as they eat from some Thai take-out on Stuart’s bed as usual).

He isn’t sure that it was how you’d start a reasonable, nice conversation with anyone.

Ash raises an eyebrow at him, looking somewhat very much perplexed.

“Because telling your straight best friend that you would fuck them is in the first ten rules of the things you should not do in the _how to be a gay man having adjusted relationships with straight men_ handbook, maybe?”

“But I didn’t know that it was me.”

“Well, you’d have known if you had found out. And you’d have thought about that. Eventually. And it seems like I was right.”

“Okay. Okay, that was a good point. But –”

“What kind of crisis are you having?”

“I’m not having a bloody crisis. It’s just – oh, leave it, it’s nothing. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Ash’s eyes narrow and Stuart wishes he had just kept his mouth shut.

“Are you offended?”

“What – no! For fuck’s sake, no! I’m not – I’m not the kind of guy who has the every-gay-man-I-meet-will-want-to-sleep-with-me phobia. I just worded it wrong. Probably.”

“That you’re not,” Ash answers, smiling slightly. Stuart thinks that his heartbeat goes a bit faster at that. What the fuck is up with him. “It’s a rare brand of man. It was a compliment. But if – no, leave it.”

“Wait, what?”

Ash sighs and puts the take out on the nightstand. “Please tell me that if this turns out the bad way things won’t be awkward.”

“… all right?”

“I said, someone I didn’t want to _fuck_.”

Ash stares at him with those ridiculously huge blue eyes as he says that slowly, putting some weight on the _fuck_.

And.

Oh dear. Oh, dear. Obviously if you want someone to hold your hand when you’re in need of an I.C.E. you wouldn’t want to _fuck_ them.

Stuart should run for the hills.

He shouldn’t have put his hand on Ash’s – _seriously what is he even doing here_.

“What happens if I kiss you right now?”

Ash swallows.

“Are you serious?”

“Fuck me, I think I am.”

Obviously it was enough of an answer because a moment later the food is forgotten on the bed and they’re making out in a seriously embarrassing way and Ash _can_ kiss and fuck, okay, fine, Stuart is embracing his one on the Kinsey scale right the fuck now.

He’s also thinking about changing his I.C.E. number, too. He isn’t sure if he should tell Ash or not, but hell, he can always decide later.

End.


End file.
